civilized ku# 2657-60 / decay # 50 / kitchen life # 47~ where are the lies / falsehoods or untruths?

still life / decay ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
hotel pool / Queensbury Inn ~ Glens Falls, NY, • click to embiggen
spaghetti sauce burst ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
Pete's Ahhhs pizzas ~ North Creek, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
Zeronine-Moon climbing a porch post ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
Whiteface Mountain / entrance ~ Wilmington, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenAs I have mentioned previously, one of the blogs/sites I follow pretty religiously is Jörg M. Colberg's Conscientious Photography Magazine. I do so because, for the most part, I like the pictures he presents and his commentary which accompanies them. And, even though he's an academic - Professor of Photography at Hartford Art School/University of Hartford - Colberg, IMO, manages to walk a fine line between the academic and the academic lunatic fringe, photography division, rarely crossing the line into the latter.

That written, in a recent entry / essay (link at end of quote) he wrote:

As an artist, you have no obligation to the truth ... Photographers often have a very hard time dealing with that. Is not what is in front of the camera the truth? Well, yes and no. In some – rare – cases more yes than no. But usually more no than yes. And regardless, the truth is what you want it to be, even if what you do is to make pictures with some sort of machine. ~ Jörg M. Colberg - Conscientious Photography Magazine

A fair amount of Photography Theory has been written about the medium and its relationship with truth and its cohort reality (example: read this and come back after the dizziness is over). Most of that writing has been put forth by the academic community, much of that by the academic lunatic fringe and, IMO, most of that of the how many angels can dance on the point of pin variety.

The idea of truth and reality have been, for centuries, a preoccupations of the study philosophy. And once again IMO, those topics are best left to philosophers and picture makers shouldn't touch them with a 500 ft pole. Lest, if they do, they are apt to end up making specious statements such as "the truth is what you want it to be".

When it comes to statements such as that I, for one, tend to jump off the head of the pin - where I, the angel, can occasionally be found dancing - and attempt to get down to brass tacks. It is at those times when I am reminded of, as an example, beady-eyed close-minded ultra right conservative /tea party nut jobs who steadfastly hold true the belief that President Obama was born in Kenya and is a closet Socialist / Communist who is out to destroy the "American Way of Life". Second in line are the ultra conservative religious fundamentalists who hold true to the belief that the earth is 6,000 years old and humans walked the earth alongside the dinosaurs.

Now, the actuality about those beliefs runs distinctly contrary to the ideas themselves. And, no matter how intensely or devoutly one holds those beliefs, the fact remains that they are not true. They are simply delusional beliefs - they are delusions / fictions not supported by facts or science. Calling those beliefs truths simply because those who hold them want them to be true is a rather ludicrous concept.

The dictionary definition(s), re: truth, contain (amongst others) such notions as "the real facts about something" and - here's the one I like, re: pictures - "faithful reproduction or portrayal".

Without a doubt, the camera is the device most capable of creating an accurate and faithful reproduction or portrayal of what is in front of an observer who is sporting such an instrument. Assuming, of course, that the intent of the picture maker is to represent, in picture form, what is in front of him/her in the most accurate realistic manner possible (as the medium and its apparatus will allow), a picture making activity most often referred to as straight photography.

Furthermore, it is my belief (therefore it must be true) that the tangible material / physical objects in front of my camera are both real and true observable things (animate and inanimate) with which I do not have a hard time dealing with, re: telling the truth about them, picture making wise. It is a truth that every thing I have ever pictured actually existed and the resultant picture was an accurate and truthful / faithful reproduction / portrayal thereof.

Now, all that written, it should be written that most of my pictures are also meant to be more than mere documentation. My various bodies of work are driven by concepts / ideas and the pictures therein are intended to be not only visual illustrations but also illuminations of the concepts / ideas driving their making. And it at this juncture - the crossroad of art objects and art / meaning - where things are apt to get a bit fuzzy.

But of course, IMO, it is that fuzziness which is the true beauty of art - art expressions which instigate the quest for meaning. Short of outright and obvious propaganda, the meaning(s) to be found in any art piece is apt to be as varied as are the knowledge, experience, and beliefs with which an observer brings to the proceedings.

In a very real sense, every art expression is a bit of a Rorschach experience. And it is the medium of photography which is capable of creating the most difficult of Rorschach tests inasmuch as the visible expression of the straight picture maker's art, the picture itself, can be a very detailed and literally accurate representation of the real world of observable, tangible, material things and events. And in viewing prints of the real world, many come either to a brick wall, meaning wise (a cigar is always a cigar), while others come to a many-forked choice, meaning wise, in the road (while sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, at other times a cigar can be much more than just a cigar).

Whether or not the meaning(s) to be found in a picture is believed by the observer of a picture to be a / the truth or not is really quite immaterial relative to whether or not that meaning is, in fact, true (a truth) or not.

In any event and all of that written, in this entry I put forth a few of my very recent pictures for you to view and, if you are so inclined, tell me where the lies, falsehoods, and untruths are to be found in those pictures.

Comments

[Peter]

What? Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes? (you shouldn't have mentioned the cigar)

[Jim R]

Cigar? Now, let me see, Groucho Marx, George Burns, Fidel Castro anyone?